New Peatland Manager appointed
Scottish Woodlands Ltd (SWL) has appointed Dr Erin Stoll as its first Peatland Project Manager, reflecting the growing significance of peatland restoration in the future of the rural environment.
Dr Stoll joins SWL’s carbon team, the UK’s largest developer for Woodland Carbon Code projects, with several large-scale peatland restoration projects already completed and a number of others in the pipeline.
Emma Kerr, Head of Carbon at SWL, said: “I’m delighted to welcome Erin on board, in what is a very significant appointment for the company.”
“Her appointment as Peatland Project Manager is the first in this growing sector by a mainstream forestry business. Erin’s work will complement Scottish Woodlands’ current forestry management and carbon services and deliver peatland restoration projects for a wide range of clients with a carbon and environmental objective.”
She added: “We realised there was a growing need for an in-house peatland specialist to design and manage a wide range of large and smaller restoration projects, and Erin is an ideal fit for the role. She has an excellent blend of academic achievements and hands-on experience in environmental science, land management, and peatland ecology.”
Dr Stoll joins us from her recent role where she was a Planning Forester and Peatland Specialist, responsible for forest planning, grant applications, and peatland restoration initiatives. She has also worked at the Environmental Research Institute, part of the University of Highlands and Islands (UHI North Highland), in Caithness and for the John Muir Trust.
Dr Stoll said: “I’m really excited to be joining a company at the forefront of peatland restoration - and look forward to supporting a wide range of excellent projects as part of the Scottish Woodlands’ team.”
“It’s also a great opportunity to develop my leadership, research, and project management skills within a larger organisation which is hugely respected in the rural sector.”
Dr Stoll has a PhD in Environmental Science from the University of Stirling, where her research focused on soil carbon and nutrient storage, as well as an MSc in Conservation and Resource Management from the University of Liverpool.
Landowners, looking to rise to the challenge of meeting the Scottish Government target of
restoring 250,000 ha of peatland across Scotland by 2030, are restoring peatland for a number of reasons, such as habitat restoration, biodiversity enhancement, improvements in water quality - and generating carbon credits. These credits can be used “in house” to balance against their own UK based estate/farm emissions and any surplus credits sold to those organisations wishing to mitigate unavoidable UK based emissions.